You beat me to it! I just saw that too, and there does not appear to be any sort of tracking on it, that would identify it as coming from my referral ID. I bet you many more people would end up clicking that before an ad, and publishers are not going to be credited for any of those clicks. It will also cause people to leave my site quicker, thinking "yes, I'll see what else is out there in that search."

On the flip side, it does give an interesting insight into what keywords they are using to provide the targeting ads.

1) This seems more like a Microsoft trick than what I would have expected from Google.

2) The "related searches" topics seem pretty random--more so than they'd be on a search page, where at least the user has entered a keyword or keyphrase that Google could use to make an educated suggestion.

I would like to know more about "Related Searches" What are they going to put on the AdSense next without informing publishers? I think Google should ask before putting certain things on the code. But then again who am I? Google? Not! ;)

I would like to know more about "Related Searches" What are they going to put on the AdSense next without informing publishers? I think Google should ask before putting certain things on the code. But then again who am I? Google? Not! ;) It seems very unfair though...

I am guessing this move is permanent not temporary. When you log into your control panel at AdSense, their AdSense ad examples now show the ads with the "Related Searches:• term " on the bottom. If they were only testing it out for a few hours, they probably wouldn't have bothered to change the ad examples.

<think> Is this pirating, or fair game? and is displaying adsense now a sign that a publisher is "selling out" seeing most of their links now go to google for similar sites and adwords. </think>

Maybe it will cause only serious content publishers who are confident of their brand and site to use adsense to any extent in the fullness of the time. So I can see at least one silver lining.

the final effect may be that people who are looking to buy will have an extra link to leave your site without any compensation - and probably click on the same adwords from the google serps they were directed to which were on your site to start with. I think its unlikely they will return to your site from the google serps, unless you have a very original niche, and leading site, and they would be highly unlikely to click on the ad after returning.

I can already see certain people chuckling and snickling surriptuously this morning. (other affiliate and ad servers, overture, publishers who have not started using adsense or put much effort into it yet!

A newly generated page on one page of my site shows a white box instead of charity ads with "This blank space brought to you by Google". I think I'd rather have charity ads than a big white nothing on my page that is from Google. No related searches listed at all.

whatever you call it, it's hardly not unexpected yes? We always knew that the agreement meant that Google could do whatever they wanted. And signed up with that knowledge. Most people were expecting a "bait and switch", reduced CPC's or whatever they want to call it.

How many publishers really seriously read the TOS before inserting the code. Even a quick read should have suggested this was highly risky territory.

Its juts business. I dont have any problems with it at all. If at one time in the future the disadvanatges of adsense outweight their benefits, in comparison with other revenue options, we would just drop it, like any business.

First of all, it's true that you can't please all of the people all of the time! Only a couple of weeks ago some people were complaining about the PSAs and saying they would rather have blank space, and now some are saying exactly the opposite.

But, I think everyone who has tried AdSense has been hugely impressed with the ease of use/amount of money/speed of payment, no? We can't start moaning because everything is not as we would like - Google's primary concern is to get searchers to use their product, so they can a) licence it and b) sell advertising. The related searches is just an extension of that.

If you feel this will hurt your site more than not having the ads, take them off. But if you only feel it will hurt your google revenue - well, it looks like they've found a good way to kill the spammers who were looking for the highest paying words so they could throw up crappy sites and watch the money roll in!

One last thing, we all thought that they were watching for big changes in CTRs for 'suspicious behaviour' - with the ad colour changes + related searches will that even be possible now?

This is really awful the more I think about it. I guess Google just thinks they can do whatever they want with small sites. Which is of course, true. If only I had 20 million pageviews I wouldn't have to put up with this crap.

I posted my thoughts about it on the other "related searches" thread on this board: [webmasterworld.com...]

Basically, I've completely removed google adsense from my sites.

Major problems are:

- Related searches links look like content on your site, rather than ads by google.

- Related searches seem to have the tendency to list similar content as that on your site, giving users a link OUT from your site to others of similar content. This would be fine if you got paid for it, but uh.... I don't remember ever having feelings of wanting to become a charity for Google.

I use the 468 x 60 banner ad because it better suits the layout of my site. With the 2 related search links and the ads by google link now I have 3 free links or every 2 paid links. Also the related search links are extremely well targeted. I could see losing a lot of visitors to them.

I was one that didn't mind the charity ads, of course I would have rather had targeted ads. But I could tell in my niche that those charity ads were somewhat targeted to my site, and different from what I was seeing on other sites. I don't really like the looks of that big empty space, especially with the "this blank space brought to you by Google" on it. I must admit, I did have a chuckle the first time I read that little caption.

"As part of the AdSense program, Google may suggest up to two relevant search queries below the AdWords ads on your website. These queries are labeled as 'Related searches.' If we do not yet have relevant ad inventory or have not yet crawled your web pages for content, related searches may appear in place of ads."

They go on to say it's not possible to opt out of related searches.

Up to two relevant search queries? That's not what they're doing! ... On some of my pages I'm seeing four related searches -- unpaid, unwelcome exit points -- even though the tower has a full complement of targeted ads.